YouTube issues

A question for anyone here that has a YouTube account and has ever uploaded Michigan sports to it. Are any of your videos suddenly being blocked or written up as matching third party content?

My YouTube account is currently in shambles but it's somehow still standing. Of my 402 videos, over 200 of them are now currently blocked world wide. These videos include all sorts of classic football victories going all the way back to the 1970's, some basketball vids with the Fab Five and the majority of my player tributes.

The same common theme on every video that is blocked globally is thanks to audio visual content administered by ZEFR. I don't even know what the hell ZEFR is or what it stands for.

What's most puzzling is that there is no pattern to any of the vids that were marked up. Some basketball vids are blocked, others are fine. Part 1 of the 2010 UConn FB game is blocked but part 2 is fine. Even silent coaches film from the 1970 MSU football game is blocked by ZEFR despite the fact that it never aired on TV!!!

Is anyone else having this problem? I'm trying to think of the next step to take because I don't want my account removed altogether. I've put 5 years into it and I'd rather not stop doing one of my favorite hobbies.

"wolverinehistorian, for someone so dedicated and seemingly level headed, his grudges are monumental." ~ triangle_M

ZEFR is a company that works with movie studios and other media outlets to post licensed clips on youtube. Basically they are saying that you cant post those videos because you dont have a license like they do. It is bs, your videos seem to be fair use. I believe Brian had a similar problem with mgoblog youtube videos being blocked, try to contact him to see what he did.

I'm having the same exact problem!!! I have a bunch of Michigan football/basketball games plus Michigan replays from 2003-2007 n there being blocked I think they've blocked like 15 videos so far. I'm not sure wht to do cause it says the audio/visual content is copyright for ZEFR

Wow I'm glad you're in the same boat and not the only one. I've had 3 of my videos pulled down by these bastards as well. (2003 vs houston, 2004 vs miami and 2006 vs iowa).

So far I've fought them all with counterclaims on youtube since I own all of the footage on my account. But with youtube being youtube, they'll most likely take the corporation's side and screw us over.

My option is either fight these assholes until the end or take my talents (lolz) to Dailymotion or Vimeo and post my content there.

If they're blocking coaches' film from the 70s, and you're sure that ZEFR doesn't have rights to that content, get in contact with Youtube and let them know that you'll be contesting any and all DMCA notices from ZEFR until this is resolved. This is blatantly illegal since they obviously don't have good-faith reason to say that they own that footage.. I'm sure an IP lawyer would be able to advise you.

Fuck it. I'm done. I've been playing back and forth with the assholes by disputing claims and ZEFR keeps reinstating them. Youtube isn't even in charge of their own site. And they now have taken them down permanently. Now they're making me do a stupid copyright quiz. That's the last straw for me.

Fuck youtube. I say we take our vids to Dailymotion. There are no such thing as rules there.

The transfer process is very tedious and will take awhile but I'm willing to help out everyone with the downloading of the videos. I think if you still have the original link of the deleted video, it will work on savevid. Test er out.

I'm going to keep uploading to YouTube. ZEFR is annoying but they're not blocking videos as fast as I'm uploading them. You can also re-upload stuff as long as you do something to the file to change the checksum like add or cut one second. For example, I re-uploaded the 2012 MSU game after it was blocked:

What happens if you take videos that haven't been flagged yet on YouTube and make them unlisted? It might keep the trolls at bay since they might not be able to find them, but it would still allow you to embed them wherever you want.

I suppose it defeats the purpose of letting people stumble across them on YouTube, but at least it may let you keep some kind of control over the content you have there.

This is a good point. Wolverine Historian, you might want to consider getting a site like the MGoVideo guys have, have your videos unlisted on Youtube, then embedded on your site. That could be a possible workaround.

It won't work. ZEFR and other content owners search for embeds too. I've had several unlisted videos blocked. Having a site also means their lawyers will come after you personally instead of just blocking your videos through YouTube's copyright system.

And other college teams have their own historians. Oklahoma, Nebraska, OSU, Notre Dame, Florida, USC, Iowa, Virginia, etc. They don't have as much content as I do but if I'm getting blocked, they better be too.

God, this sucks.

"wolverinehistorian, for someone so dedicated and seemingly level headed, his grudges are monumental." ~ triangle_M

Really sad. I hope this works out for you. What you do is highly valued by the M fan community and it's seriously not defrauding anyone. These 3rd party copyright witch hunt assholes are just out to make a buck.

Can you (or any mgolawyer) send an email to mgovideo at gmail dot com? Notre Dame has filed a complaint against me and the guy who helped Brian before has been slow in getting back to me. I know you're still a student but I would appreciate it if you could read the complaint and let me know what you think.